Soul in Control: Reflections of a Reformed Superwoman

By Janet M. Neal

By all accounts, Janet Neal was living the ideal life or at least she thought she was. The reality was quite another story: She was exhausted, unhappy, and unsure of just who the real Janet truly was. Life and a liberal application of hair gel to her face helped to get her attention, forcing her to move from her reliance on her faulty thinking to listening to the wisdom of her soul. This collection of insightful and amusing vignettes chronicle a superwomans journey fueled by her belief that she had to do everything and do it perfectly to her awareness that there was actually nothing she had to do; she already had it all.
A must read for anyone who has thought Is this all? or What now? Janet gives life a new perspective - indeed a soul perspective!
Nancy Aronie, Author: Writing from the Heart
Soul in Control is an engaging and entertaining reminder to stay focused on whats important. Janets practical advice is sound medicine for a frenetic world overtaken by distraction and a false sense of productivity. Her wisdom offers hope in our professional and personal lives.
Kenny Moore, Author: The CEO and the Monk: One Companys Journey to Profit and Purpose
In her wonderful guide to living a deeper, richer life, Janet Neal takes us by the hand and shows us step by step how to give up the need to manage our life perfectly and find that serene, sunlit place where our soul is in control. With stories and lessons straight from the heart that we can all embrace, Janet is a wise and witty superwoman-turned-sage. If you want more joy, fulfillment, and fun in your life, then read Soul In Control -- youll be glad you did!
Karin Abarbanel, Co-author: Birthing the Elephant: The Womans Go-For-It!
Guide to Overcoming the Big Challenges of Launching a Business

• Language: English
• Publisher: Balboa Press
• Release date: Aug 13, 2012
• ISBN: 9781452551562

Janet M. Neal

Janet has been writing her newsletter and blog, A Balanced Perspective, since 2002, when she left her corporate life behind and entered the world of entrepreneurship. She has been a columnist in regional publications and quoted in numerous mainstream media; she has also read her work on Writing from the Heart on Sirius Radio. She is a single mother, entrepreneur, writer, coach, and speaker. Janet lives in New Jersey with her children and two dogs. Visit her online at www.janetmneal.com.

Book preview

Copyright © 2012 by Janet M. Neal.

All rights reserved. No part of this book may be used or reproduced by any means, graphic, electronic, or mechanical, including photocopying, recording, taping or by any information storage retrieval system without the written permission of the publisher except in the case of brief quotations embodied in critical articles and reviews.

ISBN: 978-1-4525-5155-5 (sc)

ISBN: 978-1-4525-5156-2 (e)

Library of Congress Control Number: 2012938887

Balboa Press books may be ordered through booksellers or by contacting:

Balboa Press

A Division of Hay House

1663 Liberty Drive

Bloomington, IN 47403

www.balboapress.com

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Because of the dynamic nature of the Internet, any web addresses or links contained in this book may have changed since publication and may no longer be valid. The views expressed in this work are solely those of the author and do not necessarily reflect the views of the publisher, and the publisher hereby disclaims any responsibility for them.

The author of this book does not dispense medical advice or prescribe the use of any technique as a form of treatment for physical, emotional, or medical problems without the advice of a physician, either directly or indirectly. The intent of the author is only to offer information of a general nature to help you in your quest for emotional and spiritual well-being. In the event you use any of the information in this book for yourself, which is your constitutional right, the author and the publisher assume no responsibility for your actions.

Cover Design by Marie Lourdes.

Balboa Press rev. date: 08/06/2012

Contents

Introduction

Chapter One

Becoming Aware

The Chair Incident

Selflessly Selfish

Making it Fit

Leftovers

Ode to Ralph Nader

Hidden in Plain Sight

Let the Sun Shine

You Can’t Go Home Again

(and other good news…)

The Magic Words: Snow Day

Lessons from Lily

Life is a Walk in the Woods

Getting the Real Thing

Playing to Your Strengths

Taking Life Literally

Turning 85

Redefining Holidays

Making Every Day Mother’s Day

Chapter Two

Holding Back And Letting Go

Letting Go

Just Do It!

Making a Personal Course Correction

The Fall of Denial

Responsible Adventure

Physics 101

Becoming Visible

I Dreamed a Dream…

Puppy Love

Escaping (My Mind’s) Reality

Free to Be…

I Know It’s Somewhere…

Stress is Our Friend

Chapter 3:

Good Enough

Grabbing the Rope

Coming in the Front Door

The Tablecloth

Dodging the Dream Squashers

I Want MORE!

Gray is Good Enough

What’s It Worth to You?

Never Enough

Taking the Costanza Test

Thoughts on Being Fearless

Batting .500

No Autographs, Please

Chapter Four

Loving What You Do and Doing What You Love

Choosing Gratitude

On Being 93

On Being a Conduit…

The 30 Year Gift

The Other Side of the Equation

The Power of Bamboo

Passion + Baseball = Steinbrenner

Start With the Gratitude

Calling Me Out

Finding Your Inner Rudolph

Rolling Out the Red Carpet

Chapter Five

Life Through a New Lens

Spring in January

Yellow Roses and Stephen Colbert

Baseball’s Been Bery, Bery Good to Me

Sky Mind

Skating By

This Isn’t Happening Just To Me?

A Joyful Martyr

Bad Days and Mashed Potatoes

Costco and the Simple Things in Life

Nature’s Antidote

I Guess I Needed It After All

I Believe They’re Related…

I’m a Big Sister and I’m Here to Help

Life Is a Giant Thumb

The Lessons of Lack

Inukshuks to the Rescue!

Life’s Highway

Look Up, Tune In, Turn On

Loving Fish

Sam I Am

Sweating it Out

Is It Done Yet?

We’re Nothing But Ants

Chapter Six

Balancing it Out

Let Go or Be Dragged

Sybil’s Got Nothing on Me

A Decision of the Heart

Keep Hope Alive

Life Lessons in Triplicate

Never Say Never Again

Singing Loud for All to Hear

Getting the Right Fit

Relationship Hoarders

Shine On!

Tapping into My Inner Martian

Winter’s Weeding

Embracing Silence

From the Mouths of Babes

Getting the Lesson

Losing My Hearing

The Ram Who Lost Her Focus

An Alchemist at Heart

Authentic Living

Life in a Fog

On Becoming a Somebody

Soul in Control

About the Author

Acknowledgements

To my three beautiful children, who teach me, inspire me and create the love and laughter in my heart.

When we forget what we should be,

We find who we are

Introduction

It was the hair gel that woke me up. Up until then, I was able to dismiss the other blunders, barely acknowledging the pattern that was emerging. But as that extra firm hair gel started to grip and hold, it got my attention. Even though I had used it daily for weeks, I had never really appreciated its strength before. Not until the day I applied it…to my face.

Sure, I had a lot on my plate. Who doesn’t? Selling a house, buying a new one. Juggling home, work, a new puppy, and a new relationship. It was all just more, more, more. The balls were still being juggled effectively and I was getting by. Or so I thought. It was really the application of hair gel to my face that finally made me wake up.

Earlier in the week, in the midst of the angst of home selling and contemplating the next steps in my business, I received an e-mail which essentially shook me up and started the unraveling of my very loosely held together life. It seemed that the newsletter I had been publishing for the past six years had a title that was owned by another person. This fact was brought to my attention through an e-mail encouraging me to cease and desist any and all use of the name. In truth, this was not a big deal – except to me. That name was part of my identity and work of which I was proud. The e-mail served to unleash a plethora of emotions that I had buried while attending to my very busy life and left me feeling frustrated and angry, with a huge resentment that I was not willing to release.

I planned, and schemed, and ran through a vast number of scenarios ranging from downright evil to Zen-like magnificent. My righteous indignation ran amok. And that was not all that ran amok. In one day I sent two e-mail introductions to the wrong people: Raymond received the one intended for Randee and Karla R. received Karla L.’s instead. Now, instead of the name of a placement firm, the recipient got the name of a pizza place, and instead of an entrepreneur, they got an executive. A cosmic mismatch. Then I received a call from my insurance agent who was wondering what happened to my monthly payment. I knew I had sent it electronically. It was later in the day that I received the thank you from Sears for the unexpected, unnecessary payment, which of course should have gone to State Farm. And then I put the hair gel on my face.

As the gel hardened and shocked me back to the here and now, it literally made me stop and look at myself in the mirror. I was forced to slow down and face the fact that I was feeling no longer in control of the many moving pieces of my life. Doing everything by myself just wasn’t working. Something needed to change. I flashed on the story of the Buddhist monks and the woman at the stream:

Two monks were traveling together when they came to a river with a strong current. As the monks were preparing to cross the river, they saw a very young and beautiful woman also attempting to cross. The young woman asked the monks if they could help her.

The younger of the two monks hesitated as they were not supposed to have any physical contact with women. The older monk gently motioned the woman onto his back and proceeded to help the woman across the river. Upon reaching the other bank of the river, the woman got down, thanked the monks and went away.

As the monks continued their journey, the younger monk became increasingly agitated and finally spoke out, Brother, you know we are not permitted to have any contact with women, how could you carry that woman on your shoulders?

The older monk looked at him and softly replied, You are right, I did carry that woman. But I have already put her down many hours ago after we crossed the river. Why are you still carrying her?

I realized that I was carrying a whole mountain of things with me – to do lists from the present, expectations for the future, burdens from the past – and the magnitude of it was clouding my vision, my thoughts, and my ability to function effectively. One by one I had to acknowledge, and let go of, angers, resentments, perceptions and opinions that were doing nothing but weighing me down and misdirecting my life. High on my items to release list was the newsletter. With an acknowledgment of what was right, a release of my pride, and through a synchronistic conversation with a friend, I let go of the old newsletter name and welcomed in the new version: A Balanced Perspective.

This book is a compilation of articles written during my journey in going from living a controlled life that was led by my ego, my mind and my thoughts, to leading a life of grace and ease, where I invite my Soul to be in control. Think of this book as your karmic wake-up call. If that doesn’t work, a little extra firm hair gel on the face may do the trick!

Chapter One

Becoming Aware

The Chair Incident

I hate being early. Being on time even brings its own set of anxiety for me, but early? Downright nearly puts me over the edge. Last week I showed up early to a meeting and sure enough, was presented with not one, but two anxiety provoking scenarios: 1) having to make small talk with someone I didn’t know very well, and 2) picking a place to sit. This proved to be the more difficult scenario. Not only did placement come into the equation (not too close, not too far), but there were a variety of chair types from which to choose. Did I want one with arms, or without? Cushions or no cushions? Straight back or slightly slanted? Seriously, WAY too many choices! I realized that I could: a) stand there all day and worry about it; b) wait until the room filled up and take what was left; or c) just go with what seemed right at that moment and hope for the best. I chose the latter.

As I sat and waited for the meeting to begin (and stewed at being there so very early!), I realized that this chair incident was such a metaphor for my life right now. A month or so ago I was given a workbook to fill with my goals for the year. Being a goal-driven person, I knew it was a good activity – until I actually had to put them on paper. It was like walking into that room and seeing all those chairs. Where to start? Which one to pick? The choices become overwhelming. And just like my choices with the chairs, my choices in life come down to either spending my time worrying about them, waiting until life or someone else forces my decisions, or just going with what feels right at the time and hoping for the best. Gulp. Pretty tough stuff for someone who traditionally has been concerned about making sure she is doing the right thing, and doing it perfectly as well.

I keep thinking about Mark Zuckerberg and Facebook. I haven’t seen the movie yet, but I get the impression that he started Facebook to meet girls. I don’t think he set out to create something that would one day create a platform that could rally millions to peacefully topple a corrupt government. Meeting girls – doable. Overthrowing governments – yeah, not so sure. But he just chose what was in front of him, what felt right at the time. He took action. There was no way he could have had any concept of his actions’ unbelievable consequences.

So, for today, I’ll show up. Maybe not on time. Definitely not early. But I’ll take a deep breath and keep moving. Hey, you never know where this path may lead me.

Selflessly Selfish

I want what I want when I want it. So basically I guess you could say that I am selfish. However, there are also many times (decades, actually) where everyone else’s needs/opinions/desires came before mine. In other words, I’m a selfless selfish person.

As you can imagine this personality contradiction has caused a great deal of internal conflict. Perhaps it is why I was always a middle-of-the-road kind of person most of my life – too complicated to choose one side or the other. Compromise may be the name of the game, but as you may imagine, this is not an easy solution for either side of my persona. My selfish side doesn’t want to give any ground and my selfless side feels guilty and unworthy of doing the same. It’s a Freudian conundrum.

I’ve had to make decisions in the past which strongly invoke this schizoid personality. Whether it is for a career decision or a relationship issue, the result is the same: I am frustrated regardless of the outcome. I do black and white – I don’t do gray easily. Perhaps this is just another reason I abhor most of the winter months: they are SO gray. With the exception of my hair, gray is definitely not my favorite color.

I am working hard to be comfortable with being uncomfortable. In some ways, it is one of the hardest things I’ve ever attempted to do. Going through life without knowing all the answers – or risking that someone may actually notice that I don’t – is a bit unnerving. And yet, the mere act of being vulnerable serves not only to bring me out of my selfishness, but releases me from the people-pleasing selflessness.

I’m taking a deep breath on that one. Here goes nothing…

Making it Fit

As I waded through the widely strewn contents of my basement in preparation for moving, I muttered more than a few choice comments about my ex-husband’s purchasing habits regarding home improvement project materials. We owned more make your own screen kits than we had windows in our house. And just how many new door latches does one REALLY need? I was feeling very smug – until I got to the home office/study area and found my Achilles heel: office and school supplies. At last count I have unearthed 11 unopened sets of divider tabs, probably 40 folders, and possibly 20 notebooks. Let’s not even talk about the pens, pencils and paper of various stock, color and usage. And there still are three unexplored boxes just waiting to expose my weakness.

OK, so I’ve uncovered another hidden treasure of moving – the exposure to all your stuff. Not only am I finding physical stuff that I had long forgotten, but I am finding all sorts of goodies of the emotional nature. One of these more interesting finds is my need to categorize.

Any good organizer worth his or her salt gleefully will charge you with the painful, yet necessary task, of deciding what stays and what goes. That is phase one. Next, lump together those things which share some common component or usage. This task I actually find very rewarding. I now actually can find kitchen items easily, the kids can, at a glance, find the Xbox game vs. the Playstation ones, and, of course, there are those office supplies. The problem is what to do with the stuff that doesn’t fit neatly into a category or group. For example: what do I do with the baby books? Are they to be shelved with the photos, or archived with the we won’t need these for a long time items? They could go either way. Which begs the much deeper question: what do I do with the other things in my life which I can’t categorize?

My career had been put pretty much on hold as I was consumed with this move. As I see the light at the end of the tunnel of boxes, I realize it